Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps – Barbara Hannigan

   in Classical Music (Dec, 2017)
Sir Simon’s recent arrival at the helm of the LSO and their palpable close rapport seems to have brought the orchestra a new sense of purpose. The Webern is exquisitely coloured, its lyricism and long lines prioritised throughout.

The video format allows us to appreciate Hannigan’s choice of costumes, one red and sophisticated for the powerful, warm-toned Wozzeck fragments, one neither red nor sophisticated for the Ligeti. Clad as a gangly, hormone-saturated naughty schoolgirl, she delivers a performance of split-second accuracy and fantasy in Mysteries of the Macabre. Rattle leads the LSO to a blistering climax in Berg’s ‘Invention on a Tonality’.

Stravinsky’s Rite has long been associated with Rattle …